While I’ve been off running around in Serial Network Land, a happy community comprised of white-picket multiplexers, 2.37 acoustic couplers per household, and antiquated serial devices linked via proprietary RS232 connectors, the IT world seems to have developed a bit more than the last time I took a look at emerging technology.

The last time I looked at emerging technology, the last time I was riding the high and mighty wave of IT ingenuity, Bush-Senior and Yeltsen were hanging out in Moscow discussing arms reductions. I’ll leave you to figure out the time frame, but suffice it to say, it’s been awhile.

It was a simpler world back then, back in the halcyon days of the pre-dot-COM-crash, partly due to the fact that there was no dot-COM to actually crash. Regardless, I remember distinctly this feeling of excitement that was running amok through the whole of the computer world around that time, a feeling that at any minute something amazing was going to happen that would change the world forever.

It was right around this time however, the second (or third, or fourth) Golden Age of computing if you will, that I crawled inside the hollowed out shell of a DPS 7 mainframe and never came out. I opened the bay door now and again to see various things buzzing by me in a haze of consumer glee – the 486SX, 2400 baud modems, the Pentium processor, the World Wide Web, and so on, ad infinitum. In my armored home of serial networks and coax cable, I heard distant rumors of something called Facebook, and Digg, and VPNs, and some super-fast connection that ran through a phone line, but was nothing like the dial-up days of yore. I shut the door of my iron tank, foolishly declaring that I would never emerge, only to find myself forcibly ejected from my Rousseauian paradise at the end of the first decade of the 21^st century.

“Learn Windows!” boomed my employer, “the days of support for your *NIX serial clients are drawing to a close!”

“Never!” I declared, my fist in the air, my jaw set. “Coupled tty ports and serial boards will live forever!”

“Go fix that Server 2003 problem! And when you’re done, re-license that terminal server!”

“Fix the WHAT?!” I cried. But in my heart of hearts, I knew it was the end.

My heyday, my Golden Age, had come and gone, and with it my wave of excitement that had lasted for so many years. That wave of excitement was the motivator in staying up for days at time tinkering with circuit boards, ripping apart an Atari to build something else with its innards, or any other geeky interest that caught my attention. That enthusiasm was replaced, instead, with a general dislike for computers, a mistrust of anything labeled “new,” and an overwhelming apathy for the industry as a whole.

And that remained the case, until, a couple months ago, I purchased the Nintendo Wii.

OH MY SWEET GOD I LOVE THE WII!!!

To be clear about this: I’ve never come close, in any capacity, to recapturing the sheer excitement of my early days in computing. No matter how many of the latest gadgets I get, no matter how many new techie things I get, I’ve never felt the same rush I had the first time I logged into a bulletin board, smashed a rotary handset into a coupler, or powered up an AS/400 in a refrigerated room I wasn’t supposed to be in. Occasionally, however, I’m reminded why I still like gadgets, and nerdery, and computers in general. My most recent reminder is, as previously mentioned, the OHMYFUCKINGGODITSAWESOME WII!!!!

I don’t know why I waited so long to get one because, honestly, I love Nintendo. A lot. I love Nintendo like I love sea monsters AND I LOVE SEA MONSTERS AN AWFUL LOT. I also love zombies. But, regardless, here I am…a few years behind the curve but still head over heels for my goddamned Wii.

Actually, to break it down a bit further, here’s a list of things I love (in no particular order [except for the sea monsters]):

1.       Sea monsters
2.       My iPad
3.       Raptors
4.       Scones
5.       Nintendo
6.       Not being outside
7.       Coffee
8.       Zombies
9.       My Wii
10.      Yoshi

Why would I bother to list these 10 things I love so dearly (11 things, if you count Guinness)? Because I can now combine all of the world’s most wonderful things right in one place. Observe: I can now sit on my ass in my basement (away from the horrible sun that lurks outside), next to my stuffed sea monster, with my iPad sitting on its dock on the coffee table, while the coffee table is serving its intended purpose (holding my coffee and scone [and maybe Guinness too]) while I play a Wii game that has either (or both) zombies and Yoshi.

No, it’s neither an acoustic coupler nor my very first bulletin board, but it’s as damned close as I’m going to get.

A mirror of desires.

A two dimensional wishbox.

Everything in the palm of your hand, at the stroke of a finger.

Looking into glass I can see me looking back. Can you?

I touch my own reflection with a gentle caress – all the while being productive.

The perfect mix of ego and ipad.

It feels cold, but the silicon heart races to please me – like it cares.

Like it likes me.

I want it to like me so that I can show the world that I am who he wants me to be.

I need to wear more black.

No. Not more. Just the right amount.

Like a robot stripper, the case is cold – yet with unexpected bumps. One locks orientation. Bisexuals should avoid – It’s a trap.

If I heart Apple, must I also Apple hearts? That would be a fine heart.

I think I’ve made myself clear. Or do I mean reflective?

I love my iPad.

I love my iPad with that ineffable kind of adoration that’s normally reserved for saints, saviors, and a really good pint of stout on a summer night.

 Admittedly, there aren’t many gadgets I don’t like, so the odds of me not liking the iPad were fairly slim. Okay, in all honesty, I would have liked the iPad had it done nothing more than look pretty;  which, as I’ve discovered, is all that it’s good for.

But damn is it good at looking pretty.

More specifically, however, it excels at looking pretty while rendering graphics, streaming video (from the rather kick-ass Netflix app), and keeping track of work I should be doing, which customarily becomes work I’m not doing. As I excel at not doing work, and the iPad excels at doing nothing other than looking pretty, we’re a match made in humdrum heaven.

I love my iPad so much that I want to bear it’s offspring;  and shortly, I suspect, there will be an app for that.

Remember when you were a kid, and the amount of interest you had in something was directly proportional to how big and shiny it was?

…Welcome to the iPad.

Let me be clear – I’m a self-professed geek. I love gadgets. I obtained my iPad pretty soon after the day of release. I bought a screen protector because I didn’t want any harm to come to it. All of which should tell you how much I wanted to love it.

However, it is fairly useless.

And I still love it.

Now calm down – I know some of you could tell me that I can take notes on it – or that I can play board games on it – or that I can use it to make me look far cooler than I actually am. Yes, there are thousands of apps already available for it. But that’s not the point. The point is – it’s pointless.

Look, there are a few products which, over the years, have been released to the general sound of the public being unsure what to do with it. (The sound is ‘uhrm?’ if you’re unsure). But if these products appeal to enough geeks/nerds/fangnuts – you find a whole industry will spring up to fill what must obviously be a gap in the market.

Let me give you an example –Texting.

First we had phones – then carphones – then mobile phones. Then, suddenly, we could text. It was exactly like talking to someone, except misspelled and it gave your thumbs cramp.

…Why would anyone, therefore, bother texting?

-          Because it looks cool, that’s why.

And soon enough, phone texting lost the prefix and became known as ‘texting’. And then my kids grew up and decided there were too many vowels in the world, and now it’s ‘txtng’.

Now clearly you can’t reduce that anymore without it becoming a non-word (or ‘Welsh’, as we call it in England).

So txtng needs to find a new direction – but it won’t die because it’s still cool.

Where does txtng go when it won’t die? Twitter. That’s where.

So now I can Tweet! And Tweeting is insanely cool. Celebrities are doing it – Politicians are doing it – Musicians are doing it. Txting has successfully evolved, and now we’ve got an entirely new type of texting that goes to loads of your friends all at once. In the next couple of generations there will probably be yet another form of texting that goes to everyone and involves no keyboard at all.

Oh no, wait. That’s shouting.

But Apple has made a living from creating things that there is no purpose for. Then a strange old man tells you that you must have one. And you buy one.

…Hm. Okay – I buy one.

And you know what? You’ll spend around two weeks desperately trying to find the things that will make it ‘click’. That will make it fit that spot in your life in which there wasn’t a gap until you bought the damn thing in the first place.

So let me tell you how well it fits in my gap. (That didn’t sound as dirty before I typed it).

1. If you have a wife who frequently threatens to kill the computer to death because it doesn’t load quickly enough – An iPad ‘just works’ so you will save yourself some frustration.

2. If you enjoy walking around with a clipboard. It’s exactly like that, but shiny.

3. If you like that iPhone app that looks like a glass of beer, and now want to drink a pitcher of beer. It’s good for that.

4. If you like looking at your own fingerprints on glass. – It’s good for that.

5. If you like Flash Video and changing batteries – It’s not very good for that.

Okay, so there are some limitations – and I may be an Apple fanboy but I understand the reasons for ‘no-flash’ and think it’s probably for the best overall.

In reality, I currently carry my iPad with me wherever I go. I’ve loaded a few videos on it so that I can watch something locally if I’m bored. I’ve downloaded a couple of books so that I can read on it if I’m bored. I’ve downloaded an App called Office2 (Squared) that allows me to read and write Word/Excel files (which is usually what makes me bored).

The form factor is perfect. The first two days are spent with your hands desperately trying to figure out how best to hold it. It usually ends in some kind of manic juggling – but presuming the iPad makes it through in once piece, your hands call a truce with it and it ‘just fits’.

I think that sums it up – It ‘fits’. And I’m sure that in about six months someone will release the thing that we don’t yet know should exist. But when it does exist, it will justify all the iPad carrying I am currently doing.

In short -  Welcome to the iPad. It’s the most essential non-essential item you are ever likely to look forward to regretting buying.